Sunday, June 18, 2017

Tri-State Monument: Corner of UT-AZ-NV

I returned to the corner of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. I was last here in August of 2009 (here is my previous post). Much has changed. The site was renovated in 2016 and sports new monuments and many flags. The monuments indicate that the site is now named Tri-State Monument.

The old sandstone monolith monument is gone. It has been replaced with 3 monument plaques and 4 official flag poles. Several more flag poles have been added (maybe by visitors). They are strapped to various fence posts.

The route is now much easier to follow. Nifty little sign posts have been installed marking the way. Here's what they look like.

The road is in worse condition than in 2009. It took me an hour to drive the 17.8 miles (one way) compared to 45 minutes in 2009. Here's the route recorded by my Garmin GPS and shown in Google Earth. It begins off Interstate 15 in the NW corner of Arizona in the small town of Beaver Dam. I stop there often to buy Arizona lottery tickets (their odds are better than California).

Slow down for all the cattle guards. They all have a big lip on them and can damage your wheels if you hit them too fast.

Sections of the road had a rough surface, covered with embedded rocks. I had to drive either very slow or very fast. Otherwise, it felt like the car was shaking itself apart. I should have lowered my tire pressure.

This is the right turn to head ESE along the barbwire fence.

This is the only section of road that presents any challenge. There are a few dips (much easier than in 2009). In places, the brush scratches the sides of the car. My Land Cruiser is kinda large, so I got a few scratches that are deep enough that I'll need to buff them out.

Many flags fly at the monument site. Several appear to be contributed by visitors.

Here are photos of the three monuments.

The previous geocache has been replaced with a sorry paint can containing junk food.

If you're worried about the dips and the creosote scatches, then there's an alternative. There's a large area off the road where you can park and hike the rest of the way. Most of the brush and dips happen after that point. It's less than a mile from the monument.

Those little sign posts only show the route to the monument. To return safely to the highway, without getting lost on one of the many side roads, you need to either follow the breadcrumb trail your GPS navigation system displayed for you, or you can look for the sign posts (facing the opposite way) each time you encounter an intersection. I did that 2nd option and it worked fine.